


i.o.u.: one ticket home

by delurks



Series: beyond the borderlands [15]
Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe, Bad Decisions, Betrayal, Borderlandscast, Burns, Cigarettes, Depression, Dissociation, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Post-Betrayal, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reconciliation, Suicidal Thoughts, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-26
Updated: 2017-04-26
Packaged: 2018-10-24 06:18:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10735875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delurks/pseuds/delurks
Summary: lalna goes to lalnable with an offer that can’t possibly be refused. lalnable proves him completely and utterly wrong.the sequel to ‘i.o.u.: one new arm’. after the prologue, what happens in this fic takes place before and during the events of chapter twelve of ‘tlvh’.





	1. end of the line

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a brief glimpse of how strippin and benji ended up on pandora.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this short fic is actually a prologue to ‘i.o.u.: one ticket home’. otherwise, have your standard warnings for guns and violence, as well as depressive behaviour. other than that, enjoy!

The cargo ship trails through the jumbled string of clouds, descending leisurely until it touched down onto the ground. Along its underside, a ramp popped out, landing in the dust.

Down it, a pair of workboots confidently marched until pausing at the ramp’s edge as if taking in the scenery beyond it. A second pair of boots thumped down after the first. It too, halts beside the ramp edge. The pause that follows is a tad more uncertain, of what Pandora holds.

“This is it, our last real gig and then, it’s off to proper starship engine building school,” Strippin mutters. He lets out an anticipatory breath.

The air’s full of dust, and there’s open ground as far as the eye can see. He could throw a stone as hard as possible and not have it hit anything for metres, amongst the plains. Honestly, it’s not bad terrain for a few competitive games of kickball before lunch and it gets too hot to stay outside.

It’s a glorious, beautiful day, even if sunset is starting but there’ll still be sun for hours. It’s guaranteed to make a few of the workers (including himself) leave their shirts behind to keep up their tans. There’s not a lot that could be kept hidden in a cramped ship with thirty or so people living in it.

Workers began to unload the ship’s cargo. Strippin turns, hollering at the ship’s interior. “Come on, these tracks aren’t going to carry themselves! Get cracking!”

“Maybe they will if we leave them sitting around!” One worker shouts back, to boisterous laughter that rang around the inside of the cargo ship’s holds.

“Only in your dreams!” A few chorus back.

“All we have to do is survive on Pandora,” Benji observes, scrutinizing a clipboard that spawns in his hand. “Our rep from that company’ll be here soon to check in.”

“Bah, we got this,” Strippin boasts, indicating the shining badge attached to his front pocket. “All they’re here to do is sign our paperwork so they can pay us, we make sure nobody purposefully drops a rail on their foot and gets a hefty payout- hey, watch the unrigging!” He hops off the ramp to go help two workers unlatch the workerbots. “That’s delicate equipment, be more gentle with it!”

“Easier said than done,” Benji mumbles, climbing down after him. His own badge gleams, though not as much as Strippin’s (who’d spent all night putting in a painstaking amount of effort into making it shine).

Grinning as he leaves the workers to their task, Strippin returns. He throws a muscled arm over Benji’s shoulders, jostling him. Benji holds up a hand to keep his cap in place.

“So far, Pandora’s not that bad compared to home,” Strippin points out. “I mean, look at that sunset. Gorgeous, ain’t it?”

“It  _ is _ pretty,” Benji concedes. Strippin won’t admit it to avoid being teased, but he enjoys a lovely sunset. He pointedly adds, “I hope you packed sunscreen. The tourist’s guide to Pandora recommends it.”

“Of course I did! What do you take me for, an idiot?” Strippin lies. “I’ll go get it right now, in fact.” He hopes that the medical bay doesn’t mind being raided on the first day to avoid a fifteen minute lecture from Benji. 

Benji refuses to strip down to his pants, toughing out the heat. It’s a running joke that Benji could stand in a desert and  _ still _ not remove his shirt.

Waiting for him (and he’ll be on the lookout for sun safety), Benji leafs through the contract pinned to the clipboard. He’s been over every page to remember the main gist of each one.

This’ll be their most expensive job yet; Strippin’s promotion makes him the second technician in command, short of becoming the actual boss of the entire operation. Benji’s his right-hand man and that’s what he’s content with.

On this planet, they’re here to fix all and any damaged rails the surveys find. After that, it’s head back home to grab all their stuff, say bye to all and any friends before shipping out to one of the inner space stations for a new life. 

Benji and Strippin didn’t come this far to be put off by another few months of gruelling work despite their bumpy, late start to achieving their dream.

So far, the work itself has never disappointed. It pulls from the disciplines of demolitions, engineering, electronics, environmental geography, diplomacy, quick thinking and a bit from the school of improvisation.

Rigging starship engines can’t be that difficult after years of scrimping, saving and backbreaking labour of setting up life-saving rails out in the sticks to link crowded cities to the most remote villages.

Alternatively, it’s repair jobs patching up damaged lines with shoddy setups starting to collapse, or providing emergency rigging services to companies that needed an extra pair of hands out and about as they got their shit together to send a proper team in. 

It kept Strippin and Benji’s team busy, at least. The two will miss their team once this job’s complete.

Benji’s heard rumours of Pandora and read the twenty page briefing (and contrary to what Strippin’s appearance suggested, Strippin read all documents thrown in his direction;  _ all _ of them, even optional material, which made for fun times with people trying to score cheaper contracts). 

Pandora’s rail lines are a mixture of Hyperion, Atlas and Dahl’s resources pooling together to make a tri-hybrid network spanning over the planet’s surface. It’s a particularly comprehensive one, intended to ship supplies, soldiers and equipment about.

What Altas and Dahl began and left unfinished, Hyperion swooped in to add the final touches. Hey, it worked, until it didn’t.

Judging from the blueprints, it’s a mixed, chaotic system, held together by a miracle of cross-engineering and basic workarounds. Small wonder why it’s falling apart at all the major junctions. The already stressed systems began to break down, as repairs increasingly failed due to growing incompatibilities.

Why the corporations couldn’t agree on a universal system flies over Benji’s head. It would save so many technicians a headache from memorizing five different sets of plans for one system. It’d cut down on manufacturing and implementation costs too. Well, corporate rivalry’s keeping his lot in business, so Benji can’t really complain.

Benji’s been kicking around an idea for that universal system; if the starship engine school doesn’t work out, that’s what he’s doing. That is, if Strippin wants to. Benji’s not sure if Strippin will settle for anything else beyond an admissions letter to said school, which includes Benji’s admission too.

They’ve been in this business since they dropped out of high school, dragging their feet from one job to another, stuck planetside for the better part of five years. And now here they are, hopping from one planet to another, never staying in one place for long.

Strippin slides down the ramp on a storage crate that’s been cut loose. He rides it as he would a racing hoverbike, whooping wildly until the crate slams into the others and throws him off. He hits the ground, rolling but laughing at his own stupidity. Shaking his head, Benji despawns the clipboard and moves to help him get to his feet. 

Behind them, the cargo ship’s emptied out as camp’s set up.

Just beyond the site, a figure with golden eyes appears at the Fast Travel Station. The perfectly circular mechanical rings within the eyes shift, adjusting from a space station’s lighting to that of the planet. The immaculately suited figure runs a hand through their gelled red hair, smoothing it back. 

They head right for the hill leading to the railroad technicians, mentally leafing through the contract as they do so. 

If these technicians are anything like they’re supposed to be, the rail lines will be back up and running, ready for the mining corporations to claim supply lines.

\--

“The company’s been  _ bought _ out?” Strippin bellows at the ECHO device clutched in his hand. His boss’s image flickers as the device is jolted. “You told me that we were doing fine! We’re even ahead of schedule! I thought Hyperion’s paying for all this!”

“Hyperion’s handed the keys to Sipsco.,” His boss mumbles, shifting in their office chair.

“Where’s the slimy git I was speaking to a few months ago?” Strippin snarls.

“Not answering their ECHO device.”

“Tell Sipsco. they're forking over the rest of the fees for this job, and we’re getting off this planet the second it’s done! Call me when you’re sending over the next lot of ships.” Strippin despawns his ECHO device before his boss can get in any other feeble excuses.

Benji hands him a mug of coffee. Strippin accepts it, dumping his ECHO device onto the folded out office table. “Do we keep fixing the lines?”

“We keep fixing the lines,” Strippin mutters. “No sense in leaving the job unfinished. We’re better than that.” He takes a sip. A second later, he gags, sticking his tongue out. “Benji! What the  _ fuck _ did you put in this?”

“I put everything in!” Benji defensively says. “Mine tastes fine- don’t waste it!”

“This is fucking horrible!” Strippin opens the window. He stares at Benji as he dumps the foul coffee out onto the ground. Benji proceeds to sulk for the rest of the day.

\--

“Hey, Strippin?”

“Mmyeah, what’s up, my boy?”

“...I’m not your boy. This is why I don’t let you drink more than four bottles of whatever we bought from the locals.”

“You love it when I start to dance. Look, look, it’s your favourite move, the hipsnake.”

“That’s just your hand in your zipper. Get off the table before you end up concussing yourself again.”

“Dance with me.”

“No.”

“Dannnceee with me.”

“You are so drunk.”

“You are too.”

“I practice the time honoured art of moderation. I’m the freaking master. People come from all around to learn from  _ this _ maestro.”

“Not with the way you’re carrying on, you’re not.”

“Shut the hell your mouth-”

“Benji, my boy-”

“My, how the mighty have fallen.”

“Falling off a table is not my greatest shame in life.”

“No, that’s throwing my coffee out the window.”

“Fucking hell, Benji, let it go! I already said sorry!”

“No. May it bother you for the rest of your life.”

“I’ll drink it tomorrow. Pinky promise.”

“Yeah, alright. Every drop.  _ No _ sugar.”

“That’s unfair! I need sugar in my coffee to live!”

“Oh yeah, I wanted to ask you something.”

“What?”

“Do you think...we’ll ever reach our dream?”

“Yes, I think we will. Someday we’ll  _ soar _ amongst the stars. We’ll be  _ stars _ , mark my words, Benji.”

“I’m writing them on your arm in permanent marker-”

“Fuck you! That shit’s not gonna come off!”

\--

The ships don’t turn up for a week, nor the next week or the week after. Strippin and Benji watch from the ramp as workers (some of whom they’ve known for literal  _ years _ ) pile their meagre belongings onto vehicles, driving off into the unknown. Nobody’s promised to return. Boss isn’t answering their ECHO.

Out of the thirty or so workers, they’re the only two still waiting.

On the night the tally marks reach a month, Strippin stumbles out of the cargo ship and falls to his knees, screaming at the giant, impassive moon. 

In his room, Benji’s fingers find the contract pinned to the clipboard. A tug dislodges it until he’s holding it by the edge. The paper’s halved, bisected into symmetrical rectangles overlapping each other. It’s flipped, hands working to press ruffled edges together once more. 

Benji folds up the contract until it’s nothing more than a crisply folded up bit of paper tucked into the draft of his admissions letter.

Outside, Strippin’s sobbing dies down.

\--

“Strippin, you awake?” Benji calls out, softly. The shotgun in his hand’s set down in the corridor. It’d been a smart investment after spiderants tried to lug off workers once they’d hit the colonies bordering their next plot.

He knows that Strippin’s still asleep, asking anyway out of habit. Two weeks is a long time to lose to sleep. He enters in the code to Strippin’s room (which is Benji’s birthday and Benji’s room code is Strippin’s own), slipping in.

It doesn’t reek, just yet. The cargo ship has windows and vents. Strippin’s closed his vents to silence the angry, harsh mutters crawling up from the other rooms. Benji fixes that by shunting it open, filtering out the stale musk of a person who has nothing left to hang onto.

Strippin himself is tucked into his bed, curled up so tightly around a pillow that it’s going to have permanent marks worn into it.

Benji tramps through the garbage on the floor. Empty ration containers, loose pages and drained water bottles rustle past his boots. He stomps over to Strippin- only to stumble when he steps on an object. It skitters into the edge of Strippin’s bed, bouncing under a greasy pizza box. Cursing, Benji treks back over to the light switch.

His second journey back over to the bed’s put on hold as he stoops down. Benji picks up the dented object he’d accidentally stepped on. It’s Strippin’s worker badge, embossed with the initials of their company, the one he always made sure to wear before stepping out of the cargo ship.

Benji’s long since put away his, in a locked inventory so Strippin can’t hurl it off a cliff the first chance he gets. Strippin tried to destroy his, by the looks of things.

There’s a charred edge, plus one with rounded dents like Strippin had taken a hammer to it or thrown it at the wall in a fit of rage. Add to that Benji’s own damage and well, the badge looks like it’s seen better days. He and Strippin have.

Either Strippin gave up on wrecking the badge or couldn’t go through with it. Benji shifts through his wandering thoughts, staring at the shirtless, unshaven man snoring away on the bed.

Through the tinted glass above the bed, people are approaching the cargo ship. Benji slips the other badge into his inventory, snatching up his shotgun and races outside.

It’s a few of the rail workers, driving vehicles that are ‘technicals’. The technicals are ‘as ugly as sin but roar like nothing’s he’s ever heard before’, as Strippin eloquently put it (three weeks into their predicament, when he hadn’t tried to burn through a crate’s worth of rakk ale in a day).

Benji doesn’t bother with recalling names; anybody’s who left the crew isn’t worth remembering.

Shock and recognition passes over each of the former worker’s faces when they spot him on the ramp. It’s clear none of them had expected to see him again. Benji doesn’t know what they’re doing now to survive. 

Two aren’t dressed in the uniforms they’d left in, sporting gear belonging to a few of the touchier locals, all spiked pauldrons, torn vests and toughened, ripped clothes. It’s like they’re trying to be something that they’re not. Pathetic, really, from Benji’s perspective.

“Benji! What’re you still doing, hanging around this place?” One of the worker’s jovially greets, jogging over to meet him. Their two companions hang back, clearly wary of the gun Benji’s holding.

“What are  _ you _ doing  _ here? _ ” Despite the politeness, Benji’s voice is frosty to the point of stopping the worker dead in their tracks.

“Hey, man, don’t be that way,” The worker begins, stepping forwards with a nervous grin.

Benji makes his point extremely clear by lifting his shotgun up so that it’s trained on their chest. Nobody left with the shields he’d locked up in the armoury. Stupid of them not to gear up before encountering him.

“State your business, or get fucking lost.” The other workers start.

“Hey, don’t shoot him!” 

“Benji, come on!”

“That ship of yours, it’s still got a bunch of stuff in it, right?” The worker he’s pointing the gun at clears their throat, trying a placating tone like Benji’s some sort of agitated animal that needs to calm down. “We just came back to get our shit, don’t be so paranoid.”

The technicals are heavy duty ones, empty metal trailers rigged to the back of each. Toolboxes fill the backs. One worker’s twirling a wrench in their hand.

“I’ll get your shit, but I’d better not see you ever again.” Benji turns, walking back up the ramp. The workers are relieved that he’s being so cooperative, nodding to one another, grins growing wider.

Once he’s out of sight, Benji breaks into a sprint, detouring through the mess room to despawn every ration box and useful container within reach.

Thirty seconds later, he barges into Strippin’s room.

“Strippin, wake up!” He hisses, piling everything valuable or that could be sold into his inventory or whatever spare digistruct modules he can find in the mess amongst the floor that’s not junk, garbage or unwashed clothes.

“Whassat?” Strippin groggily mumbles, one leg falling over the edge of his bed.

“They’re going to dismantle the ship!” Benji’s put down the shotgun by his hand to stuff clean clothes away. He feels for the shotgun to pick it up- it’s gone. Bare feet are careening down the corridor towards the ramp. Benji tears after Strippin, stumbling. “Strippin!”

“Boss! It’s uh, great to see you!” The worker’s who had their hand on the ship’s hull is backing away at the ferocity of Strippin’s glare.

Strippin strafes down the ramp, Benji’s shotgun in his hands and for all intents and purposes, looking like he’s just woken up from a hellish nap.

“Get your traitorous fucking hands  _ off _ my ship,” Strippin’s hoarse voice snaps.

“We’re just having one last look, that’s all!” The worker claims. “Nothing wrong with that!”

“Fuck off,” Strippin snarls. “Go back to whatever fucking hole you’ve crawled into!”

“We really thought you two would be far away by now,” The worker cajoles. “Here, you can take a technical. Besides, that ship’s just dead weight-” He doesn’t finish his sentence, eyes widening before he falls backward to hit the dust.

The other workers scramble to take cover as Strippin turns the shotgun on them. Benji lunges for Strippin, wrestling the gun out of his hands as the technicals disappear over the hills.

Strippin blinks, staring at the dead body that’s several metres away. Benji puts away the shotgun, dragging the leaking body towards the ravine and shoving it over the edge.

The two silently break down the ship, stripping it down to its frame; they’d once boasted that their combined inventories could hold a whole ship, which is what it’s doing right now.

Strippin and Benji take the technical that’s been left behind, not saying a single word.

\--

Benji leafs through the notices once their courier (mostly Trell, he recalls, but sometimes it's Elora) rockets off down the road. This job’s usually Strippin’s, reading the mail and separating the junk from the important stuff.

Humming to himself, Benji crumples up an advertisement for performance enhancements in bed, plus another for a Bloody Bandit concert. He’s heard bandit concerts could get pretty rowdy. A page at the back of the lot’s skimmed over, until Benji’s eyes spot the company logo: Flux Inc.

He should remember that from somewhere. For the life of him, he can’t place exactly where. Companies didn’t bother to send out notices like these unless it’s to evict. Benji reads, then rereads the letter.

Looks like the rails around these parts don’t belong to Sipsco., anymore.

Strippin’s underneath a hoverbike (belonging to Dead Worker’s Party, one of their uppity spares) when Benji pops his head into the space next to his.

“What? Did we get another joke eviction notice?” Strippin grunts, rolling out from under the suspended hoverbike. Benji excitedly thrusts the paper into one grease stained hand.

“We can fix the rails now!” Benji’s been pushing to finish the abandoned job. 

Getting Strippin to accept doing the Lynchwood rails for sheriff Martyn had been partially due to needing the money and mostly to do with Benji refusing to cuddle Strippin for almost a whole month.

Strippin’s face clouds. “No.” In between his blackened fingers, the paper’s crushed. “That’s job not our problem anymore.”

Benji stares long and hard at the ball that’s lobbed into the bin, bouncing off the rim. It lands under a workbench heaped with all manner of spare parts to make a Rat bandit wheeze for days.

“If you won’t fix them, I’ll fix them!” Benji shoves past Strippin to reach the Catch-A-Ride machine.

“You’re not fixing those rails!” Strippin bars Benji from reaching it, thrusting an arm to stop him from climbing into the technical spawning. “Do you know who they belong to now?”

“Yeah, but we still have a job to do!” Benji snaps. “The rails aren’t owned by Sipsco. anymore!”

“If I said you’re not fixing the rails, you’re  _ not _ fixing the rails,” Strippin growls. “They’re all the same, using people and then backstabbing them like they’re nothing!”

“That’s not true!” Benji doesn’t have an example he can list off the top of his head, but that’s not the point. It’s likely that Martyn’s reluctance to help still smarts.

He’s sick of Strippin’s pessimism, and how they fight if the conversation touches on anything rail-related; it’s embarrassing and unprofessional to hiss at each other in front of customers if it gets that bad. 

Benji’s never left a job for this long before. It keeps gnawing at him. In his mind, he goes over the terms of the contract, when it shouldn’t have meant anything. He wonders if he should send a copy to the Flux Inc. head to see if something could be arranged. If he does though, Strippin’s never talking to him again.

Strippin won’t have anything to do with the job that ruined their dreams.

“Then why’d they leave us here to  _ die _ ?”

“They didn’t mean to!” Benji knows where this argument’s going, just like the contract he knows off by heart.

“Benji, nobody’s coming for us,” Strippin murmurs (every time).

“Yeah, I know, but that doesn’t mean we can turn our backs on the rails.”

“The rails are as broke. As. Hell,” Strippin states, wiping his hands on a cloth. “And they’ll stay that way.”

Benji lowers his head, mumbling sourly, “Yeah. You’re right.”

Strippin just smiles, clapping him on the shoulder. He wouldn’t know if something’s off by how readily Benji agrees. Maybe if he’d been paying attention, he would have. “Atta bro, now let’s get to fixing this bike.”

When he goes outside to contact Brent to pick up the spare bike, Benji gets on his knees and fishes out the bit of rolled up paper, slipping it into his inventory. 

He eyes the workerbots sleeping under a bit of spare tarp (as they’ve been since the Lynchwood job), the toolboxes and crowbar stacked beside them and the brown technical parked in the garage space.


	2. i.o.u.: one ticket home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> lalna goes to lalnable with an offer that can’t possibly refused. lalnable proves him completely and utterly wrong.
> 
> the sequel to ‘i.o.u.: one new arm’. what happens in this fic takes place before and during the events of chapter twelve of ‘tlvh’.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guns and violence gets bumped up a little more in this part, especially the latter one. if you haven’t read c12 of ‘tlvh’ and/or 'i.o.u.: one new arm', please go and do that first; it doesn’t particularly matter much but it’ll fill in a lot of context for what happens in this fic.
> 
> i wasn’t kidding about the amount of violence in this one, especially towards the end. that section also includes torture involving cigarette burns. there’s a lot of suicidal thoughts, depressive behaviour, signs of ptsd and dissociation throughout the fic, so please take care while reading.

A figure spawns at the Fast Travel Station in one of the worker’s deserted lounges. The lone figure dusts off the thin sheet of ice and snow still sticking to them. Already, whatever’s left clinging to their neon-laced boots is melting in the enclosed air cycling through the orbiting mining rig.

Whatever colour that the Southern Shelf had leeched is seeping back into the figure’s peeling, sunburned face.

Lalna’s hand tightens around the bony trinket clutched in his flesh hand. He must be imagining the pulse against his palm emanating from what’s inside the trinket. 

It’s like the looping nightmare where he’d ripped a heart out of a bandit lord’s chest, not needing a body to live- a energetic shake of the head rattles his brain about. Come on, get a grip, he can’t stand around.

He’d left behind his common sense on this rig when he’d first returned. Now he’s here to retrieve it.

It’s too late to turn back. Lalna gulps, throwing a wary glance at the Fast Travel Station like he expects Rythian to burst out of it at any second. 

Leaving the worker’s lounge behind, Lalna scuttles along the corridors. From his faint recollection of the mining rig’s blueprints, he heads along a series of turns to a pair of lifts. He summons one. It doesn’t arrive fast enough for him to prevent dwelling on what he’s just done.

His mind flashes back to Rythian. Rythian, fighting his own body, unable to believe what Lalna’s doing. Rythian, his luminous, startlingly blue eyes flaring brighter than ever, snow and wind kicking up all around the two of them to form its own isolated bubble of time and space. Lalna had flinched, cutting away at the dried leather cord with renewed urgency.

That can’t have been Rythian. 

Rythian’s eyes aren’t  _ purple _ , a deep purple like the eridium bars sitting in Lalna’s inventory. They would have been pretty, had they been devoid of the blaze lit by the need to grab Lalna’s throat and squeeze as hard as possible until nails punctured soft flesh like stalker needles finding their mark.

Lalna’s eyes blur. A hasty wipe of his eyes with the back of his flesh hand soaks up the tears forming. He doesn’t want to show up in front of Sjin with red-rimmed eyes, or a drippy nose, looking like he’s been repeatedly smashed in the face by his own horrible decisions in life.

Lalna doesn’t really understand what’s so special about what Sjin’s asked him to retrieve. It’s a bit of worn bone, bleached too white and yellow by the sun, plus everything Pandora could throw at it and its bearer. The paint’s flaking off all the hand carved niches and curves. Nobody would bother looking at it twice if they spotted it in a bin.

And yet, it’s heavier than any other item Lalna’s ever held in his entire life. What is this thing, and what isn’t Rythian telling anyone? And why does Sjin want it so badly to resort to underhanded tactics?

It’s a bad time for his conscience to resurrect since its death. It died when he lifted the taser to direct the crackling prongs into Rythian’s head.

Will he ever see Rythian again? That is, if Rythian’s still alive. Lalna tries to find comfort in that it hadn’t been him delivering the killing blow; that’d be the bullymongs gathering to repel the intruders in their territory.

His spited conscience immediately drops a wonderful image of the bullymongs tearing Rythian apart. Lalna’s heaves in air like he’s treading water; he has to fight against throwing up whenever he thinks about the resulting gore. 

Nobody knows what he did. When they do, they’ll figure out quick that he’s behind it. No, he hadn’t done anyone any favors at all, except for Sjin.

The lift’s doors part to admit Lalna. He mechanically pushes the button for the top level. As the lift ascends (with none of the jarring motions like Elpis’ rickety one), Lalna shuts his eyes. 

He empties his mind, seeking solace in the way he’s blank. Utterly blank, like he’s merely an observer in a body that’s not his own.

When he checks back in, he’s standing in Sjin’s office.

Sjin’s office chair is facing the window overlooking the clouded brown that’s Pandora. Lalna can’t remember if the window was there before; the last conversation he had with him is a massive blur. 

All he remembers is being promised a way off Pandora and a sinking feeling that Rythian’s never going to  _ forgive _ him.

Lalna’s boots bring him over to the crowded desk. At the sound of his footsteps, the chair rotates with a leisure that tells Lalna that Sjin’s preoccupied. Fingers drum against an arm rest. As always, he’s wearing a dark blue suit with such crisp lines that Lalna’s surprised that it can get wrinkles and folds.

“Well?” Sjin raises an expectant eyebrow, all calm patience. “Do you have it?”

Wordlessly, Lalna holds out the lopped off bit of cord that’s still attached to the trinket, the bone dangling lopsidedly but still intact.

Sjin’s eyes snap to it. The office chair’s sent flying backwards, hitting the glass with a loud thunk. “Well, well, this is most surprising!”

“Take it.” Lalna’s voice is a faint whisper. The trinket in his hand continues to dangle.

“Gladly.” Sjin leans across the desk, one eager hand held out. A maniacal grin adorns his face, sharp and triumphant.

The trinket drops when Lalna’s fingers twitch, the bit of leftover cord slipping free. It falls. Sjin’s fingers grasp it. Those fingers grip it like it might vanish any second, Sjin’s eyes widening like he can’t believe he’s finally holding it. 

He inspects it, turning it over between a manicured thumb and forefinger. If the trinket had been encased in metal, it would have caught the light.

Sjin despawns the trinket, destroying Lalna’s hope of ever returning it to its rightful owner. Still grinning, Sjin searches a tray (overflowing with documents and a sizable book) on the desk. It’s almost like he hadn’t expected Lalna to successfully return, if ever.

Lalna’s eyes can’t help skating over the marked surface, taking in the title of the thesis. Clipped to the cover is a torn scrap of a page. It displays a line of nearly illegible coordinates scribbled in dried blood. All the numbers look rushed like whoever had written it had done so hadn’t cared about neatness and wanted to imprint them  _ somewhere _ ,  _ anywhere _ would do _. _

There’s also a name printed on the thesis, almost hiding underneath the coordinates. Spotting it elicits a stab of guilt so powerful that Lalna almost drops Larry Robert to take the trinket back. He tears his gaze away to take in the rest of the desk.

Somebody’s paperwork spans the rest of the wooden surface. Ridgedog’s name is everywhere, on contracts, on blueprints, technical documents. All it does is remind Lalna that wherever Ridgedog is, they’re not coming back. Sjin made sure of that.

Before Sjin can notice his stickybeaking, Lalna immediately resets his expression to nervousness, chewing away at his already damaged lower lip. His metal hand, restless from fighting the temptation to do what’s right, itches against one thigh.

Sjin exclaims triumphantly when rooting through the topmost tray. He withdraws a slim black and yellow patterned envelope from underneath the thesis. It’s presented to Lalna.

His flesh hand all but snatches the envelope out of Sjin’s. Sjin raises an eyebrow. This time, it’s amused. “Eager to leave Pandora with Lalnable, I see.”

Lalna wants to punch Sjin for saying Lalnable’s name. Except he doesn’t, hanging onto the envelope that Sjin so generously awarded him, for the price of backstabbing the first person who’d helped Lalna out when Lalna had become initially become stranded on this backwater shithole of a planet.

“Yeah,” Lalna quietly says, the envelope rustling as it despawns.

Sjin’s grin doesn’t budge. He turns back to the window, eyes glinting malevolently. “Don’t let me catch you on this planet ever again.”

He can’t remember if he heard Sjin laughing uncontrollably as the office door slammed shut. Lalna’s feet can’t take him away from Sjin’s office fast enough, back to the Fast Travel Station he’d used. In his pocket, the calibration tool clinks.

\--

At Three Horns Valley, Lalnable clears away the clutter taking up an entire trolley. That’s including the junk piled around it. For the sixteenth time, he’s going to lecture Parvis that the clinic ( _ Lalnable’s _ clinic) isn’t a play area for him to use whenever and however he saw fit.

Grumbling, Lalnable shifts the remains of the singing fish that Sparkles had finally found (hiding in a portable toilet, of all the blasted  _ locations _ ) into a cardboard box. 

A few days ago, Sparkles taken a steel capped boot to it, much to Parvis’ dismay. On a metal tray, Lalnable methodically lines up all the tools that Parvis employed to try to fix said fish. 

In Lalnable’s opinion, the fish is better off permanently dead. He should do everybody a favor and dump it in the trash while Parvis isn’t here. He doesn’t, just because Parvis is likely to make a giant mess when rooting through all the bins trying to find all the remains.

It’s a sign of how used Lalnable’s gotten to his life on Pandora that when the waiting room’s door clicks open in the background, he’s already on his way to intercept his next patient. Or so he assumes. Bah, Parvis can clean up his own mess when he gets back from whatever idiotic quest he’s currently on.

It’s not his next patient he sees closing the clinic’s door, it’s Lalna, sidling in. The door creaks shut. He stands there, awkwardly in the hallway, head bowed low.

Lalnable knows that through the conversations with Rythian (following treating Will Strife for busted stitches and collateral damage from a bandit staged cage fight), Lalna’s particularly worried about how Lalnable perceives him, especially now that their estrangement is receding. 

Add to that the additional conversation in the Crooked Caber about Rythian’s concerns highlighting Lalna’s increasingly run down appearance and his obvious withdrawal from the social scene. 

Rythian’s not the first person to be fretting; Ravs, Zoeya and a few others had approached Lalnable too. Lalna’s not alone, no matter how much he thinks he is.

What really concerns Lalnable is that Lalna’s gotten it into his stubborn head that he is.

“Lalna, is something wrong?” Lalnable’s eyes automatically travel to the metal arm that’s Lalna’s most recognisable feature.

Nothing’s out of shape, missing or fitfully sparking, a welcome sight. At a glance, there are at least three modifications that are sure to potentially violate fifty-seven of Anshin’s manufacturing and safety codes. 

He spies a thruster unit built into the actual arm itself. He decides that he still doesn't want to know why it’s there. All he does is throw a disapproving look in its direction. The whole arm doesn’t look ready to explode or fall apart. So, the arm’s not the reason for Lalna’s visit.

Lalna draws himself up taller, taking a shallow breath. His grubby t-shirt swells with the motion. Lalnable suppresses a wrinkle at how stained and sweat dampened it is, about to offer Lalna the use of the shower and a temporary change of clothes.

“Pack your things, we’re leaving Pandora,” Lalna orders. A rough shove knocks Lalnable aside in the hallway as Lalna heads right towards Lalnable’s bedroom.

Lalnable blocks him off via a quick series of strides sure to match Rythian’s longer one, planting himself solidly in the other’s path. “Lalna, what’s going on?”

Lalna’s doing that lip biting thing again. Blood wells up from a mark that’s not healed yet. “We need to go-”

“I’m not leaving until you explain to me what’s happening.” Lalnable has half a mind to plant his hands on his hips, mimicking Zylus. Given how short he is, it’s not likely to achieve much of an effect.

Lalna retrieves an item from his inventory, the envelope rustling as it’s held up to the light. “I have two tickets home!”

“Home?” The glossy sheen of the Hyperion stamped envelope is unmistakable, and oh so very valuable to a few stranded folks.

Tickets off Pandora could very well cost someone half a pint of blood, a kidney, arm, leg and whatever vital organs they didn’t need to live (including skin or teeth). 

Tickets  _ to _ Pandora cost as much as a crate of cheap, homebrewed beer. Travel to the outer worlds is regarded as a one way trip. Pandara is no exception, serving as a final destination  _ and _ a pitstop.

“Yes!” Lalna stresses, with a desperation that strikes Lalnable as out of place. He can’t put his finger on what, though.

“You can go.” Lalnable gestures at the door out of the clinic. “I’m staying.”

Clearly, that’s not what Lalna wanted to hear. Exasperated, he says, “You’re not staying!”

“I am,” Lalnable firmly says. He’d thought about it countless times as he’d roamed the planet in search of a place to settle and permanently set up shop. 

He’d told Rythian that he’s  _ happy _ here, if he doesn’t think too much about the likelihood of being robbed blind, painfully murdered, shot or all those other wonderful hazards of living on a planet where the word ‘law’ is found at the end of a sawn off shotgun.

“You’re not staying here, not after what I did to get these.” Lalna’s tone grows firmer, like he’s trying to scrub Lalnable’s wish to remain from his short-term memory.

“What did you just say?” Lalnable’s first thought leaps to murder; not as worrying as it should have been, but right, it still nags at Lalnable like a row of unpicked stitches that need attention.

“Nothing! Let’s get your things!” Lalna tries to get past him again, clearly intending to pack for him.

“Lalna, what did you do?” Lalnable’s gaze penetrates Lalna.

“I didn’t do anything, I swear-” The look on Lalna’s gaze cracks, guilt beginning to seep through to fill the rest of his expression.

“If you’re lying to me-” Lalnable hisses.

“I’m not lying!” Lalna throws his hands out, rather dramatically. 

In doing so, the calibration tool he’d rigged to electrocute Rythian topples out of his pocket and clatters on the floor. It looks exactly like Lalnable’s missing calibration tool; in fact, it  _ is _ said tool.

Lalnable stares at it. “What are you doing with this?” 

He scoops it up, his fingers feeling along the mangled bit of metal plugged into a spare shield battery. It looks far too much like a poorly crafted taser. When he touches a fingertip to the pinching bits of metal, a lone spark flies loose, drifting to the floor. He’s even more surprised that the entire tool’s still functional, with that much power rigged to it.

“I-I borrowed it.” Lalna shifts on the spot, fidgeting.

“You don’t have the eyes for this tool.” Lalnable rips off the duct-tape. It doesn’t work to separate the deadly end from the rest of the calibration tool. “It’s useless on you.”

“I wanted to fix Rythian’s eyes for him-”

“I calibrated them for him prior to sending Will Strife off to Digistruct Peak.” 

Rythian had consented to that much, before leaving the clinic. If he noticed a difference in the quality of his vision, he hasn’t said anything since then. Aside from treating Lalnable a lot less abrasively, his gratitude isn't that obvious.

“Oh, um, well, I wanted to check them again-” Caught lying, Lalna fumbles.

“What is it that you did that’s so bad-” As Lalnable says the words, his mind links the homemade taser and Rythian’s eyes. “Where’s Rythian _? _ ” Lalna doesn’t answer, his silence as guilty as his expression. “Did you  _ kill _ Rythian to get the tickets?” 

Lalnable’s still holding the contraption in his hands. He’s tempted to throw it at Lalna’s head if he doesn’t say anything or if he tries lying again.

“No!” Lalna’s outburst is accompanied by an agonised look. The envelope vanishes, in his hand. “I didn’t kill Rythian!”

It’s like that one time he’d accidentally dropped Lalnable’s dog eared, scrappy book of horror stories in a rain puddle. After trying to dry it out and scrub out the mud stains to no avail, he’d tried to hide it under the bunk bed in a shoebox, hoping that Lalnable will eventually give up his search.

To Lalna, it’d just been a book so there’s no real reason to be so  _ upset _ about it. To Lalnable, even if he could quote paragraph after paragraph off by heart, he still liked having it in his hands to absently page through, as familiar and comforting as a favourite toy or blanket.

He’d meant to tell Lalnable about it, really, he did.

The nuclear fallout once Lalnable had dug it up amongst the clutter under the bed during moving house had destroyed the two’s relationship for a whole month. No amount of parental or familial intervention could patch it up.

Out of remorse (and because he’d grown sick of his twin’s passive-aggressive attitude in  _ everything _ ), Lalna eventually scraped together enough from his allowance to replace it. 

While all was forgiven but not forgotten, it’d represented the first of their conflicts within the coming years as the two would grow older and inevitably, apart.

What Lalnable’s never gotten over is that for the first time in his life, Lalna had  _ lied _ to him. Something back then had never quite recovered from the experience; his trust in him, maybe.

From another perspective, Lalna discovered that he could lie directly to his twin’s face. It didn’t mean he’d have to enjoy it, though, or what happens once Lalnable finds out.

“Get out,” Lalnable softly says. Even if Rythian isn’t actually dead, it’s safer to assume as much until a body eventually turns up.

“He’s probably still alive-”

“Get  _ out. _ ” His grip on the tool buckles the handle.

“Lalnable, let me explain-”

“ _ Get out! _ ” Lalnable bellows, pointing at the way out. 

Lalna can barely hear him over the peal of muffled thunder glancing off the walls outside. He watches as Lalnable stows the modified calibration tool into one coat pocket, shaking his head. He’s got several calls to make.

Surely a Vault Hunter couldn’t die just like that, but there’s unavoidable rumours floating around that if one wanted a Vault Hunter dead, then sending another Vault Hunter would do.

Lalna grabs his arm in an attempt to get his attention. Lalnable roughly shrugs the offending hand off without sparing a glance.

He’s not even acknowledging Lalna, just like all those other times he’d sneered, acted so high and mighty or brushed off Lalna’s attempts to bond with him. Lalnable’s drifted off into a clinic room.

That’s  _ it _ , Lalna can’t take it anymore, on top of all resisting his blatant attempts to get the two of them to safety before the planet descends into a new kind of hell once whatever’s Sjin planning succeeds.

Lalna follows to seize Lalnable, slugging him across the face with his flesh hand.

Fuck it, Lalnable’s coming with him to the spaceport, even if he has to do this the hard way and knock him out first. At least he’s had plenty of practice in  _ that _ department, no thanks to Pandora.

Lalnable’s shocked, high sound of pain is what Lalna (with a tiny bit of guilt) relishes. He lets go as Lalnable topples back, crashing sideways against a bench.

Still on his feet, Lalnable touches his face with a shaking hand, wincing as his fingertips press against his lower jaw. Red marks pinch at his chin, rapidly turning the same colour as sunburned skin.

Breathing hard, Lalna brusquely motions with his metal hand. “Come on, the shuttle leaves at-” He makes the mistake of turning towards the door.

It’s how he almost misses Lalnable striding over, promptly slugging him back. It doesn’t have the same weight as Lalna’s punch, lacking half the momentum or the intent but it’s enough to take him by surprise. Lalna gasps, right as Lalnable punches him a second time, the move ripped straight out of a boxing ring.

The ingrained, automatic reaction at any sort of violence directed at him kicks in. Lalna takes the hit to punch him again, sending his twin flying into another bench. Lalnable shoves off the edge to fly right into Lalna, delivering another punch.

Objects throw themselves off the bench onto the floor from the impact as Lalna’s shoved backwards. Glass explodes on the floor, plastic canisters and boxes kicked out of the way as the two fight. Fragments crunch underfoot, a few catching under boots to lodge there. A beaker’s kicked into the hallway, shattering against the opposite wall to scatter across the floor.

This isn’t about Lalna wanting to go, or Lalnable wanting to stay.

This is about how the two have had  _ enough _ of each other making stupid decisions. Their newly repaired relationship isn’t going to survive this.

Lalnable stabs the taser into Lalna’s side, where his shield’s hanging; Lalna shrieks when it bypasses it entirely, the shocks piercing through his body. He jerks, once, then twice. His metal arm falls limp as it reboots.

He’s on the floor, glass and plastic scratching against his hands and knees, trying not to throw up. This must have been what Rythian felt. The memory winds tighter around his throat.

The taser’s dropped onto the floor, or at least, what made the taser a taser. The battery, tape, wiring and prongs land next to Lalna’s convulsing hand.

When Lalna turns his head, Lalnable’s holding the calibration tool, looking at it with an unreadable expression.

A shock like that is  _ nothing _ compared to what Lalna’s been through. 

For the first time, Lalna has an edge. He might have not the mental finesse to snap back an argument like Lalnable does, but if it involves hitting someone until they’re no longer on their feet and down on the ground, or making it through stacked odds, Lalna is miles ahead of him.

For the first time since Lalna and Lalnable reunited, he’s  _ better _ .

He pushes off the ground. The calibration tool joins the items on the floor when Lalnable drops it, trying to back up where there’s no room.

Lalna’s metal hand clutches Lalnable’s throat, every metal finger set to strangle him. One of Lalnable’s eyes is swelling shut, blackened and blue, matching the deep troughs under both eyes from numerous sleepless nights.

Hands uselessly scrabble at the plates of metal holding him in place. Lalnable’s nose leaks blood. It stains bared teeth, seeping into Lalnable’s scraggly beard. The two of them share the exact same tenacity; even when he’s practically been beaten, Lalnable’s still trying to fight back.

Despite one black eye and the other about to follow suit, Lalnable’s gaze still finds Lalna’s to hold it.

Lalna’s never understood how people can confuse the two of them for each other; he’s always known that Lalnable’s been a bit funny about being mistaken for him. Lalna doesn’t mind when it can ruin Lalnable’s mood for a few hours.

He’s not as oblivious as people think he is. 

For as long as they’ve been kids and as adults, Lalnable’s nursed a jealously for Lalna’s easygoing approach towards life and how he fostered friendships without much effort.

From the moment of realisation, Lalna tried not to let the resentment taint their relationship, even if people kept telling him to let things take their natural course: either Lalnable will get over it or he won’t.

They’ve always been a constant in each other’s lives, even when they’d become estranged.

After encountering Lalnable on Pandora, Lalna’s glad that he’s back in his life. He’d been devastated that Lalnable hadn’t been open to reconciliation. What’d changed Lalnable’s mind probably had something to do with Lalna nearly dying from his exploded arm.

Turns out, they’re both scared of the same thing: losing each other. That fear that drove them to feel out the initial, fumbling steps towards getting along again, with a bit of prodding here and there from well meaning parties.

Sometimes he can’t help thinking about what’d have happened if he’d never run into Lalnable in that town.

He’d always been there to defend Lalnable from threats; except when he hadn’t, when Lalnable had been on the run. Lalna’s never been able to forgive himself for that, being the older one. 

He’d told himself he’d try harder to stay closer this time (and in a way, he knows that Lalnable’s trying his best too, keeping the channel open even if the conversation became strained).

It’s why he can’t warp his head around the idea of Lalnable torturing him by staying on Pandora. Didn’t Lalnable fear the same thing when Lalna ran around with Vault Hunters?

Yes, he did. He stopped letting his hidden fears and resentment dictate how he treats Lalna. Lalnable  _ trusts _ him not to die in letting him walk out that front door with only a parting lecture. Did he think that Lalna being a Vault Hunter made him immune to death and pain?

That’s what’s been bothering Lalna; Lalnable’s flippant and practical approach to Pandora is what makes them so different. It’s how Lalnable can cope with living on Pandora, and why Lalna can’t.

He’s used to taking risks, regardless of the consequences. Lalna isn’t, and that’s what’s driven Lalna to backstab Rythian. The fear will never leave while Lalnable and Lalna are on Pandora.

If Lalnable won’t leave, then he’s fully prepared to forever put that fear to rest. Lalna stares into a face that’s so very much like his own and yet, isn’t. His hand stalls, fingers twitching like a nerve’s been touched.

Even though he’s a cold-blooded murderer, he can’t have Lalnable’s blood on his hands. It’ll haunt him for the rest of his life, along with the horrors of his other deeds.

What has he  _ become? _

He lets go of Lalnable, backing off. His quiet, horrified sobs start to fill the room as Lalnable falls onto his hands and knees, coughing.

“Lalna,” Lalnable rasps. “ _ Why _ ?” It’s an open ended question. How Lalna answers it is entirely up to him, if at all.

“I did it for  _ you _ !” Lalna screams, at himself or Lalnable, or both. “I  _ hate _ this planet, I  _ hate _ how you like being here when I  _ don’t _ because it doesn’t make any  _ sense _ !”

Lalna. Oh, poor, selfish,  _ Lalna _ , who’s been carrying that sorry burden inside of him for so long that it’s eaten away and left nothing but misery born of a fear so deep. It’d isolated him, making him a woefully easy target to manipulate.

Lalnable pushes off the floor, getting to his feet with a grunt. A cupboard door’s yanked open to reveal a bunch of neatly stacked medkits. Two are removed, which are promptly dumped onto a bench. The cupboard door clicks as it closes on its own.

Still sobbing, Lalna shakes his head when Lalnable extends a scratched hand. It hovers in front of him, refusing to leave despite Lalna trying to ignore it. 

Lalna reaches down to disengage his metal arm so he can rip it off and feed it into the nearest grinder. It’s everything that he shouldn’t be, representing an ugly transformation into what’d once been an assistive tool into a weapon wreaking mass chaos.

He can start building it again from scratch, once he’s left it and Lalnable behind. Except, if he begins anew, how can he trust himself not to repeat history?

Pliers are digistructed. Lalna brings it up to his metal arm.

A hand rests atop Lalna’s own, preventing the pliers from seeking a certain, hidden catch to bend it out of shape. That catch keeps the arm connected to the metal socket, which is embedded to the fused remains of Lalna’s shoulder.

Without an intact catch, Lalna will have to undergo surgery if he wants a functioning arm back. There’s no going back once that catch is malformed. He’ll have to break down and replace the entire unit.

When browsing for prosthetic arm model upgrades, he’d noticed that his current shoulder joint’s two series outdated from what Anshin currently offers. Either way, he’ll have to upgrade it eventually.

It means weeks of physical therapy, constant calibrations and learning how to get used to a new prosthetic all over again. It makes no difference if he deprives himself of an arm now rather than later.

“Stop,” Lalnable’s firm, still raspy voice says.

Lalna’s unable to suppress a flinch at hearing his twin’s voice, or flicking his eyes upward.

“You were right,” Lalna sobs, “about the modifications.”

“No, I wasn’t,” Lalnable counters. Blood flecks onto his shirt when he gives a slight shake of his head. “You needed to modify it to survive.”

Of all the things Lalnable could have said, Lalna hadn’t expected to hear that sort of positive remark. He stares. “No, it’s better if I don’t have it so I’m not tempted.”

Past the watery outlines and his swelling cheek, he can barely recognize Lalnable’s face. It’s set in a tender expression that he’s never seen before; he’s so used to seeing Lalnable’s face in a harsh mask of grumpiness or its minor variations. 

It hits Lalna like an electric shock: Lalnable’s genuinely  _ worried _ about him. The pliers are tugged at before they despawn.

“I didn’t know you were struggling.” Lalnable’s mouth twitches, his face frowning like he’s trying to wrestle with getting the words out (and the right ones, at that). His shoulders sag from the effort. “I’m sorry.”

“No,  _ I’m _ sorry,” Lalna blurts, hiccuping a second after.

There are a thousand things he could be apologising for. Lalnable forgives him for every single one, and Lalna somehow understands.

A tissue’s being pressed into his hand. Lalna messily blows his nose. Another one’s already in his hand when he moves to wipe his running nose on the back of his hand.

Hands lug him upright, tugging at the shoulder that he hadn’t been trying to sabotage. Lalna stumbles onto his feet, being maneuvered onto a examination table (one that hadn’t suffered any damage from the fighting).

Lalna’s calmer by the time Lalnable tears into one of the medkits. Halfway through the patching up, it comes to his attention that Lalnable isn’t acting like his usual self.

Lalnable keeps glancing over his shoulder as he works. He’s silent. When Lalna tries to talk, he shushes him. It’s when he fumbles opening a packet of alcohol wipes that of course, he’s trying to help Lalna before Lalna gets caught.

Who knows what the Vault Hunters (Rythian, especially) will do if they find him helping out a traitor?

The medkit’s scooped up; Lalna digs out cloth patches, cleaning his own wounds. It’s hard, when there’s no mirror. He’s winging it by what hurts and what doesn’t, clumsily dabbing the patch to his face.

Lalnable keeps his mouth shut as well, remaining silent; Lalna clenches his gut, trying not to hiccup so the two of them can hear footsteps in the hallway or the distant roar of a technical approaching.

Their fortune of being left alone doesn’t last.

A series of knocks are the door makes the two of them jump; Lalna knocks the medkit to the floor when his hand springs to his modules. Lalnable’s more controlled about his response, his frown deepening. He sets down the tweezers.

Turning his head, Lalnable holds a finger to his lips, pointing to the medkit before slipping out to see who’s visiting him this time.

Whoever it is is making a fantastic ruckus. Distinctly, Lalnable hopes that it’s Parvis. He could use a hand cleaning up the room, even if Parvis demands a lollipop as payment for every task he’s asked to do. Parvis can also be counted to keep his mouth shut.

It’s not him. It’s Ravs, Teep and Rythian. Lalnable’s spirits lift when he sees Rythian standing there, albeit huddled under a scratchy blue blanket, lacking a shirt. It could have been worse; he could be asked to have a look at a dead Rythian.

He also hopes Lalna has the common sense to stay hidden. Ravs and Teep appear tense, standing around Rythian like he needs to be protected (but from what, Lalnable wonders). 

One looks tells him that they  _ know _ what Lalna did, if Rythian’s still alive.

Ravs and Rythian seem shocked that he’s in such a bad way. Ravs’ immediate concern is touching, even if he’s an acquaintance who Lalnable knows only in passing.

“There’s no point in asking, Parvis already dealt with them.” Slipping the lie into the conversation is far easier than he thought it’d be. Other lies (like he’s fine) shift in his mouth, waiting to be slipped in as needed.

Lying to Ravs isn’t quite like lying to other people. It’s not often when Lalnable feels proper guilt. Rationalising the move as protecting Lalna eases the way his gut churns nonstop, and the buildup of sweat coating his palms. 

Lalnable’s glad that his face is all beaten up so that the three can’t read his expression. Otherwise, it’d be a dead giveaway, no matter how much he keeps a poker face.

Lying to Rythian’s on the same level. As a neutral party in Vault Hunter business, Lalnable has no specific allegiances. Except, here he is, deflecting suspicion by helping Rythian, and helping Lalna. Of course he’s got to protect Lalna, but he’s also fond of Rythian.

A compromise, then.

As the three enter the clinic amidst conversation, Teep’s head whips around to stare down the hallway that leads to the room hiding Lalna.

“See something?” Ravs blinks, stopping to glance where Teep’s looking. Lalnable ponders if shouting ‘look over there!’ will create a sufficient diversion. He holds his tongue instead, watching and waiting to see how this will play out. The solution is almost far too simple. When it hits Lalnable, he nearly chuckles and gives himself away.

  
“Nothing,” Teep signs, the motions slow like they’re deliberately questioning their perception. “Unless I’m about to clock out again.”   
  
Lalnable sighs, carefully letting it out so that it’s natural and not at all forced to hide his relief. “That must be Parvis sneaking some jerky out. He must have knocked something over again .” He frowns at Teep; Teep does have one outstanding issue he can use to divert attention from the mess created during his and Lalnable’s fight. “That reminds me, you and I need to talk about your insomnia.”   
  
Like he expected, Teep instantly gestures, “Fuck no.”

It’s rare when Teep drops by the clinic to pick up syringes and disposables on Zoeya’s behalf; Saberial or HybridPanda usually do the runs. That said, in his travels, Lalnable’s played medic to a couple of people who are a lot like Teep. Ask no questions and they’ll tell no lies.

There’s no way that they know Lalna’s here. It’s impossible; nobody saw Lalna entering the clinic. He’s not sure if he can stop Rythian, Ravs or Teep from murdering Lalna in front of him.

The safest bet is to pretend. It’s going to be tough; Lalnable forces himself to act like this is one of his regular days, forgetting about his bruises and aches.

“If Parvis is here, I can give him some of Teep’s jerky,” Ravs volunteers, calmly eyeing the glass. 

Lalnable has to fight the urge to create another diversion. “No, as I said, you need to stay here and hold Rythian down.” Lalnable directs the three into the furthest room on his side of the clinic, far away from Lalna. He closes the door, making sure it echoes as loudly as possible. “I’ll deal with Parvis and his mess later.”

\--

On the other side of the clinic, Lalna tends to his own wounds. Half the medkit’s used up. He’d prefer it if Lalnable’s here to tend to it for him, knowing far more than he does, but Lalnable’s busy with a new set of patients. As the medkit despawns, Lalna hears voices in the hallways, echoing all the way to his corner of the clinic.

It’s Ravs. Lalna nearly stops breathing as his voice draws closer. Ravs’ voice moves away from him, as with Lalnable’s. A second voice speaks up.

He can hear  _ Rythian _ . Rythian’s  _ alive _ . Lalna nearly sags down in relief. He hadn’t killed Rythian. Wait, if Rythian isn’t dead, chances are that he’s out for blood.

Now would be a good time to slip out. Lalna double checks that he’s still got the tickets on him, an idea forming in his mind. He scoots off the examination table, sidling over to the ajar door, pressed against the frame to strain his hearing to its limit. Voices still fill the hallway.

He cleans up a little, picking up clipboards and loose papers, shoving them back into as best a pile he can. 

One paper interests him, catching his eye. It’s an appointment notice for a new patient (an unfamiliar Bandit Lord; what is Lalnable getting into?), set for next week.

Lalna nearly drops it in his haste to avoid snooping. Mouth dry, Lalna sneaks a peek at the ECHO code written on the sheet. The location info is noted down as well, a second plan forming in his mind.

Voices fading into the distance tell him that Ravs, Rythian and Lalnable are distracted. Lalnable’s leading them away from him. He waits for a few minutes, cautious about biding his time. Nobody emerges.

Lalna’s boots crunch on bits of glass as he tiptoes into the deserted hallway. The sounds make him jump, wincing at how loud it echoes, even as he hops onto a bit of glass free floor.

Feeling horrible about ruining Lalnable’s belongings, clinic and hitting him, Lalna’s in the middle of stooping over to herd it out of the way when the hair on his arms and the back stand on end. 

He hadn’t heard a third voice.

_ Teep. _

Wherever Ravs or Rythian are, Teep’s not far behind. He hadn’t heard them going into the clinic’s room as part of the quiet chatter. Or their footsteps.

Lalna is aware that they could literally be anywhere. He forgets about the mess, moving as quietly as he possibly can. His eyes dart left and right, taking in the shadows along his route. It’s less than thirty metres to the exit and yet, it feels like it’s a hundred miles.

The knowledge that it’s just him in this area of the clinic still doesn’t reassure him that he’s completely safe.

The second he reaches the front door, Lalna bolts. Please, don’t let Ravs or anybody look out the window at that second. It’s another hundred metre sprint, past the parked technical (coloured a striking, dark red all over, like roadkill’s been used as vehicle polish), past the markers pointing out the clinic and right towards his goal.

The Fast Travel Station’s barely unfolding as he shoulders his way through the selection menu, inputting a code to a place he’d visited before.

Lungs and legs still burning from the effort of conquering the most suspenseful one hundred metre dash in his short, eventful life, Lalna nearly breaks down in relief. 

The front door creaks, from when he’d left it open. He mumbles an apology to Lalnable for letting in a draft.

A flicker of movement drags his gaze from the loading menu back to the clinic. Lalna makes the mistake of looking up, over his shoulder (or maybe it’s what saves his life).

Teep doesn’t stare like most people would, when coming face to face with their friend’s backstabber. In the blink of an eye, they’re less than a metre away, which is physically impossible.

Lalna squeaks and slams his hand on the Fast Travel Button. The combat knife slashes through empty air, exactly where his neck would have been.

\--

Strippin rolls out of bed, snapping awake as he hits the floor. Cursing, he kicks the sheet off him. Once it’s no longer tripping him up, Strippin rises.

The bit of glass propped up on a technical manual doesn’t catch the light as it should. By that estimation, it’s late afternoon. Strippin blearily scrubs his hand with a face, feeling like a skag’s barfed in his mouth and generously spread it all around.

“Benji! Time to wake up, you lazy bugger!” He lopes over to the other bed that’s Benji’s, all too aware of the wrench-sized gap separating their beds. Benji tended to drag his bed away whenever they’ve argued so Strippin can’t snuggle him into forgiveness. “Benji?”

The other bed is empty. With a sinking stomach, he pats the bed down. It’s still barely warm to the touch. Benji usually slept in, or tried to. Nobody slept in on Strippin’s watch.

Abandoning the slept in bed, Strippin dashes over to the corner that’s the designated kitchen. No coffee’s waiting in the maker.

If Benji woke up first, he’s hassling the coffee maker. Benji’s coffee is so bitter that Strippin views it as his personal challenge of the day to down the whole mug so that Benji’s feelings aren’t hurt. Benji brews coffee like he’s trying to wake the dead using pure, caffeinated spiked water.

Strippin’s anxiety nearly gets the better of him when he skids into the garage downstairs. The brown technical’s gone, as with all the gear for building and laying down rails.

That’s right, Benji wouldn’t  _ leave _ him, they’ve been through so much together. Any thought of going anywhere without Benji makes him want to stand underneath the spot that the laser’s going to fire upon next. 

Seeing that on that one night had been wild; Benji had worn a tin foil hat for the next day and a half, just to make Strippin howl with laughter. It’d contributed to crackpot theories that whoever owns the laser’s going to bring doomsday. 

The laser’s gone off a few times since, always pointing at a different location. Its constant orbit overhead is a stark reminder that anything on this planet could very well end their lives. Strippin’s never given up on leaving Pandora.

Benji, he’s not so sure about, after buying the workshop from a fast-talking mechanic with an Pandoran accent to rival Dionysus locals. Something in him fell asleep, while something in Strippin woke up and stayed awake.

It’s a balancing act, keeping the two of them together. It’s not the Rail Bros. without Benji.

With that reminder stoppering his anxiety, Strippin sprints back upstairs to track down clothes. He throws everything out of the storage unit by the beds that’s junk, spare gear, or tools. 

To his immense frustration, not a single shirt or jacket shows itself. His digistruct modules turn up when he shakes out his sheets in his ongoing quest for clothing. Those are snatched up, clipping to his belt. 

He checks Benji’s bed next. Two badges bounce from their holding box to land together on a rag. He doesn’t notice.

Five shirts, two jackets, two pairs of boots and three sets of pants can’t have possibly upped and vanished on their own.

“Fuck!” Strippin kicks the storage unit, fuming. The instant pain attacking his big toe isn’t enough of a distraction. His goggles flop out of a loose drawer, landing on top of a bath towel. He tugs them on, sliding them into place on his forehead.

Just beyond the window, an item merrily flaps from the power lines keeping the garage juiced at all hours.

He slams the window open, leaning out to see if it’s just another rakk unlucky enough to land on the wrong wire. It’s not a cooked rakk.

It’s all of his clothes, strung out at ridiculous intervals or tied around the wooden to the point where he’ll have to go pole climbing if he wants them back. His missing boots are sitting on top of the roof when he cranes his head, nearly overbalancing out the window.

In the distance, the metal ladder’s split into two segments, sticking up to the left and right of the workshop, like slanting signs mocking him.

Oh,  _ for- _ Strippin stops himself from damaging his hands on the windowsill, running his hands through his hair. 

Wherever Benji’s gone, Benji wants him to waste his time. Well, fuck that, Strippin’s not about to let his lack of clothes deter him from following.

Tugging his goggles down over his eyes, Strippin races back downstairs to the Catch-A-Ride Station. He urges the machine to hurry up when spawning his own technical. Thank fuck, Benji didn’t have time to tamper with it, in spite of their shared accesses.

The second the ride spawns, he clambers in, reversing out and tearing down the dirt road. It’s not a sunny day in the Dust, the wind beginning its momentous task of shifting sand, grain by grain or dune by dune. 

It’s going to get far worse in a few hours; the horizon’s darker than ever, heralding a storm guaranteed to knock out the power, flood the plains, kick up a hell of a mess and wreck whoever’s caught in it.

Strippin tries to ECHO Benji. The signal drops before it can connect. Swearing, he slams a hand on the steering wheel. The horn blares.

The garage has to have ECHOnet reception. A lot of blind spots existed out in the sands. He’s positive that he double checked before buying the building, to avoid being ripped off. 

The storm must already be making the network unstable, even if it hasn’t reached the middle of the Dust region. It still doesn’t make any sense to have the connection randomly drop; he hasn’t gone that far from the garage.

That’s something to worry about later, once he gets back. For now, Strippin concentrates on navigating. The other technical’s tracks are still fresh, the moving terrain already beginning to wear at the impression of treads once the proper road ends.

The steering wheel under his hand whips to the side as Strippin drifts off the turn. He lands, barreling down the shortcut he and Benji had discovered leading to Tundra Express. 

True to his expectations, what little sun shining on the Dust is reduced to the rare spot peeking out between the clouds. His technical’s headlights flicker on, illuminating the dirt track kindly left by seasoned travelers, daring bandits and smart couriers.

The desert transitions into mountainous terrain, narrowing into slanting, rocky walls that scratch against the technical’s sides thanks to Strippin’s rush to get to the destroyed train tracks.

Benji would come here; this is the first area that he and Strippin fought about, where the rails took the most damage in the initial surveys.

Dark, brooding clouds overhead watch him nail a hairpin turn, urging the technical to its limit. The rain begins as Strippin pulls up near a railing blocking off access. He vaults over it without pausing. His bare feet slip on the loose gravel and dust as he careens down the slope.

Strippin keeps sprinting down the riverside path towards the place where the tracks meets the middle of the river that makes Tundra Express one of the prime locations for shipping and receiving for mining corporations.

The river’s swelling to accommodate the rains cascading down from the mountains. It’s terrifying, the path and bank are starting to go under the hungry water. 

Too high on adrenaline to be afraid, Strippin switches to higher ground, staying well away from the foaming mass growing by the minute. His hope’s bolstered when he spots boot prints that the water hasn’t devoured.

Rain flattens his hair and beard. Strippin’s goggles activate to battle the rough conditions. It’s like he’s trying to run underwater, droplets splattering on his skin, introducing a chill that ignores his skin, seeping straight down into his bones.

His shield’s faithfully keeping him dry. The rising water slaps against the banks, scrubs, rocks, the remains of animal bones and whatever else’s been caught vanishing. At this rate, the river’s going to reach the technical before Strippin can reach Benji.

“Benji!” Strippin screams. “Where are you?” 

He strains his hearing against the wind and water, cursing at his partial deafness from overseeing one dynamite blast too many without protective earphones.

Rocks and pebbles dig into the underside of his feet, his shield working overtime to help however it can.

He’s about to scream again for Benji when his goggles light up. Several markers pop up on his HUD. Nearly sobbing in relief, Strippin changes course, plunging onwards with renewed hope. The bank’s gone, sunken under; Strippin leaps a gap, rounding a bend overlooking the place where the rails, mountain and river intersect.

A dark shape clings to a rock underneath the tracks that are falling apart, months following their destruction at the hands of Vault Hunters and one small, explosives obsessed kid rumoured to live in this area.

All the rain’s pushing the shredded rails down, disconnecting them, one rusty or and broken section at a time. One loosened piece tumbles end over end, taking bits of the decaying struts with it. It splashes, bobbing briefly like a log before the river whooshes it away in the blink of an eye.

Benji’s stranded in the middle of a shrinking island, hunched up on the highest rock. Workerbots anxiously cluster around him. Each are flashing a distress signal, a ‘SOS’ that every technician knows off by heart.

“Hey!” Strippin hollers, hopping up and down, waving his arms over his head like a drunken lunatic.

“Strippin!” Benji shouts, spotting him. A crowbar’s strapped to his back. He waves his own arms.

“Benji!” Strippin halts at the edge of the river. It reaches for a bare foot. He hastily steps back, swallowing as he eyes it before finding Benji again. “I’m sorry!”

“Get out of here! Leave me!” Benji shakes his head. 

“No! I’m not leaving you!” Strippin screams back, at the top of his lungs because he’s not so sure if Benji can hear him, between the crashing thunder, the river’s ravenous greed, or the groan of falling metal.

“The river’ll flood soon-” 

Thunder shakes the ground. Less than a second later, lightning striking the rails. It douses the scene in a white that sears both their visions like the orbiting laser is firing upon them.

Strippin covers his eyes, lifting his head once the flash is gone. He blinks rapidly, clearing his vision. Benji cowers, appearing to whimper.

The circle of workerbots are still vainly signaling. Strippin watches as the immense slope of loose snow above Benji starts to slide downwards. Benji doesn’t notice the rumbling, covering his ears from the inflicted deafness.

He does see Strippin opening his mouth to scream at him to move, turning his head as the avalanche sweeps towards him, and into him.

The halo of workerbots float higher to avoid being dragged under, fanning out to avoid the debris. The last thing Strippin sees of Benji is Benji’s stunned expression, his mouth open in a small ‘oh’ and finally, ‘shit’.

Strippin forgets about the monstrous clutch of the river to wade in. From the bank, its tug is weaker and yet, when he’s up to his knees in freezing muck, the turbulent current still nearly knocks him over. Chunks of snow force the waters higher.

He doesn’t have time to find firmer ground, keeping his eyes peeled for a certain back with a crowbar strapped to, being carried off in the mess of grey and white. A stick’s thrown into the river when he mistakenly grabs it, thinking that it’s a familiar crowbar. 

He grabs Benji’s hat when it slaps into his leg, shoving it into his inventory so he can keep watching.

The workerbots descend on top of the river, barreling towards him as they still follow their charge. Strippin’s arms stretch out to grab hold of the human shape floating by him. It yanks him off his feet, sending him into the river as well.

The river drags him in. Strippin hangs onto Benji, water sloshing against his shield. Bits of track speed past the two, one free rail slamming into Strippin’s back and away. It drains a bit of shield charge, crashing into everything else it runs into. Rocks and the riverbank gang up to chip away at his struggling shield.

Gasping as a bit of water (so  _ cold _ ) leaks into his cracked shield, Strippin feels for Benji’s head. Benji’s head lolls towards him. Somehow, he gets Benji’s head up above the water level, Benji’s arm loosely hanging onto one shoulder. 

He slaps an unconscious Benji in the face. The motion nearly sends them both under. Benji splutters as the impact glances off his shield. 

“Strippin!” Eyes widen as he takes in the situation, his hands slipping as they slide off Strippin’s shoulders.

“Hang onto me!” Strippin shouts, dragging him closer.

Benji shouts something back that Strippin can’t hear. He uses his weight to force them both underwater. The two surface, gasping, as a section of charred train speeds past, spinning the two straight into a pile of debris caught against a varkid hive.

A sharpened metal spike impales Strippin’s shoulder. It burns and freezes, ignoring whatever’s in its path to emerge out the other side. Strippin throws his head back, screaming. Benji nearly lets go of him, trying not to get hit as well. 

The violent river shoves the metal through his shoulder and out the other side, the tip painted crimson. It sinks, out of sight.

Even if his shoulder hates him for it, he keeps hanging onto Benji, not letting the river separate them. Blood joins the foaming water, spurting out from his back and front.

Strippin moans; he’s never been good about seeing his own blood. Between him and Benji, Benji’s the less squeamish one, always escorting the wounded workers to the medical bay.

Benji jostles him, holding him close. Through the haze of pain fogging up his senses, Strippin watches as Benji drags his crowbar up and over one shoulder, slamming it into the side of the canyon. 

The water’s less of a rush as the canyon widens, no longer forced to thread through thin, twisting canals leading from the mountains. Rain abruptly ceases.

The workerbots keep up their signaling above the water’s surface. Benji grimaces as the last of his shield charge empties from a boulder winding him. Blood, tangy and heavy, is in his nose, as with the stench of rain, mixing to fill his mouth.

It takes less than a second for him to get soaked. In his hand, the crowbar scrapes along the slickened rocks. It’s mostly ice, pieces of it chipping off as the river gouges at it. Benji joins the effort, squeezing the bar in his hand, hoping that it’ll catch- it lodges between two outcrops, the impact jarring Benji into nearly dropping Strippin.

“Let go of me,” Strippin slurs, blood loss making him sound drunk. “Save yourself. I’m fucked with my shoulder, I’m losing too much blood-”

“No!” Benji practically shouts. Water trickles down his face, either from the river or from his eyes. “Strippin, you promised we’d-”

“I know.” Strippin’s voice is too faint. Whatever else he’d been about to say is forgotten when the crowbar dangerously creaks, starting to bend from both their weight. 

His hands weakly paw at Benji, which he ignores. Benji’s wrist and arm muscles are screaming, but no matter what happens, even if he ends up with a broken arm, he must  _ not _ let go of Strippin. 

If the two of them perish in this river, Benji wants people to know that he never left Strippin, even if this is all his fault, even if all he wanted to do was do  _ something _ right because everything else in their lives has gone so wrong.

The workerbot shadows bob aside. Mechanical hands reach down, solidly latching onto Benji’s shirt. He starts, struggling against this new threat. The hands get a grip on him, straining. Benji despawns the crowbar as he’s wrenched up and out of the river, his legs kicking through thin air.

When he looks down, the river is still growing. By the time he blinks, his boots touch solid ground. His legs are so sore that standing’s not possible. Benji sinks onto his knees. His aches are nothing compared to the giant hole in Strippin’s shoulder, blood and water running down his body. Strippin’s out cold.

He still hangs onto Strippin, getting his arms around him so that his head is leaning on one shoulder. Benji shakes his head to rid it of water and hair flopping into his vision, peering up at their rescuer. 

It’s a pink and green Loader, rocket thrusters on its feet deactivating as it lands.

“Upgrade yourself,” A familiar voice mutters to it. “There’s a lot of dead Loaders here you can cannibalize.” The Loader stomps off down the hill.

They’re on a cliff that the river runs under. Below them, varkids are evacuating hives, the queens uprooting to flee the unstoppable force of nature wrecking their territory, shrilly shrieking as they take flight to head south towards the drier parts of Tundra Express.

The cold, cold air hits Benji. He shivers, setting his jaw so his teeth don’t chatter nonstop. Benji shields him from whoever the speaker is when they crouch by him. They lean into his vision, frowning as they peer at Strippin.

“Lalna!” Benji coughs, ashamed to nearly barf water from the force of his exclamation. At the last moment, he turns his head, splattering the ground. The workerbots drift back down. Benji deactivates them, each one falling into his inventory to rest there.

Benji nearly thanks him, remembering Strippin’s state. His hands feel against Strippin’s clammy neck. The pulse there is weak. It’s probably Benji’s imagination, but it’s getting weaker. The shoulder wound continues to bleed, coating Strippin’s shoulder in a deep, eye-catching red.

Lalna’s already tearing open a medkit, crouching to pat the area dry and administer a bandage. Benji tugs off the goggles on Strippin’s face, spawning a dry jacket to wrap it around him. It gets soaked in blood too, but that’s the least of his worries.

“I know a doctor,” Lalna mumbles, handing Benji the rest of the medkit.

“Where?” Benji demands, pulling a thermal blanket loose. It goes around Strippin as well once he’s activated it. The immediate heat feels so good, where the blanket falls over his lap and knees. 

Strippin mumbles, lightly stirring but remains unconscious. Not a good sign. Benji fixes Lalna with an intense stare, willing him to spill. It’s the same stare he uses on people who are being giant shits about paying the towing fee.

Maybe Lalna had been planning on telling him anyway, biting his lip before responding. 

“Three Horns,” Lalna says. He sighs. “I can’t go with you, I need to go somewhere, but I’ll help you move him to the Fast Travel Station.” 

Together, he and Benji get Strippin into the back of the technical (painted a hypnotizing dark purple and pink). Lalna climbs in, as with Benji; Benji stays in the back to keep Strippin alive and in the technical.

The Loader follows in the air at a distance. When Benji glances at it, it looks more like the battle-ready versions, six cannons mounted on its shoulders, the added yellow of Hyperion clashing with its pink and green paint job.

“Is that yours?” Benji rasps, keeping Strippin upright between his knees. Strippin mumbles nonsense, his head lolling until Benji holds it against his shoulder. Whatever the bandage is doing, it’s making the colour of Strippin’s skin return, bit by bit. The blanket’s helping.

“That’s Larry Robert,” Lalna explains. “You’ve met before.”

“That’s right, back when I blew up Rythian’s-” The technical swerves around a pothole, Benji swearing at the sudden move, painfully bouncing off the frame. He sighs, fixing the blanket from where it’s slipped off.

“Sorry!” Lalna returns the technical to its proper course. Benji forgets what his last train of thought was, tending to Strippin in silence and letting Lalna concentrate on driving.

Five minutes later, the technical rolls to a gentle stop (perhaps Lalna regretting nearly losing control of the technical and is trying to make up for it).

The sight of the Fast Travel Station has Benji scrambling to clamber out of the technical. Hauling Strippin in’s easy; hauling him out is trickier. With Lalna helping, he soon has Strippin slung on his shoulders, blanket and all. His feet might be dragging along the ground but at least Benji can move without falling over.

“Thank you for your help,” He warmly says to Lalna. 

Lalna tells him the coordinates to Three Horns. As Benji inputs the code, Lalna frowns, before gesturing frantically. “Wait! Take this.” He spawns a black and yellow envelope, the end flapping madly in the draft. Fortunately, he’s got a tight hold of it.

“What’s this?” Benji takes the envelope, flipping it open with one hand. Two tickets wave at him. He thrusts it back at Lalna. “We can’t take this!” Strippin twitches at how loud his voice is.

“Take it!” Lalna insists, drawing back from it like it’s a grenade. He hastily lowers his voice. “I can’t leave Pandora.”

“No, we can’t, Strippin-” Benji’s only saying that so that he doesn’t sound like he’s glad to finally achieve their goal. Strippin would kiss Lalna if he’d been awake.

Lalna scrunches his face up. “Then throw it out, or do whatever, because it’s all yours now.”

Benji’s shoulders start to shake as grateful tears prick his eyes. “ _ Thank you _ .” He carefully puts the tickets into his inventory to surprise Strippin later.

Lalna smiles at him, flashing a thumbs-up. “Don’t tell anyone where you got them.”

It’s a strange request but one Benji can obey if it’s what Lalna asks. Lalna doesn’t say where he’s going, despawning the technical as Benji takes the Fast Travel Station, hoping that it’s not too late for Strippin.

\--

Lalna emerges in the Dahl Headlands, shrugging off the lingering second of motion sickness from Fast Traveling. He doesn’t need a technical for where he’s going, plodding along the cracked road.

Mud gurgles under his boots, sucking at every step. Rain puddles wash off what his shield doesn’t deflect in time. The sun tries to emerge from cloud cover, failing as it’s driven back by the vestiges of the storm still trailing over the land. Lather, rinse, and repeat. 

His head stays empty, which he’s not sure if he’s thankful for. The journey isn’t significant, it’s the arrival that is.

An eventual left turn in the road brings him down into a massive clearing.

Skag paw prints are preserved in glistening mud dots the ground. Larger paw prints dog the smaller sets. This clearing must be an old bandit bonfire ground, crude firepits and carved log benches spreading across the space. 

It hasn’t been used in a fair while, judging by all the dust coating whatever’s been left out. The rain’s smeared it all around, runny tracks filling in the shallow holes left by roaming skags hungry for rancid leftovers or a wanderer like him.

The sight of the clearing is at odds with Lalna’s standing impression of bandits. Any hint of a hobby or a lifestyle beyond constant warring is weird, uncomfortable like a loose screw he can’t reach over and fix right away.

He  _ knows _ that it’s terrible to consider bandits as a separate category of beings. The problem is that every encounter’s reinforced the persistent idea. 

It’s a fierce cycle he hopes to break out of soon, or he’ll just keep feeling guiltier and guiltier until he’ll end up like Zylus; pushed to the point of no return. He’d come so close, in attacking Lalnable. Or has he already done that?

Shivering, Lalna pats his face with both hands. He’s got nothing left to lose, in pinning his life on this encounter.

He digistructs Larry Robert and his ECHO device. Larry Robert greets him with a pleased bob, electric motors whirring excitedly. With a small smile (at least someone’s happy to see him), Lalna motions for silence. Larry Robert obliges, as always.

Gulping, he inputs the code (stolen from Lalnable’s papers), for the Bandit Lord currently ruling the east coast. He holds his device in the palm of his hand, watching the screen go through the motions. A gaping pit in his stomach grows as the seconds build. When the screen lights up as it patches through, Lalna suppresses a gulp.

Arsenal picks up automatically; Lalna had been afraid that he wouldn’t. He feeds text to Larry Robert, who speaks out loud for him.

“Hey, who’s calling?” Arsenal demands, his voice scratchy over the ECHO device. Lalna doesn’t blame him for being suspicious at the lack of video feed. “If this is another prank call from Hawker and Hurricane, I’m going to-”

“Come to the clearing at these coordinates if you want information about Daltos’ whereabouts,” Larry Robert intones. “I’m at the clearing for twenty minutes. After that, you’ve lost your chance.” Lalna quits the call without giving Arsenal a chance to respond.

Faced with an offer like that, Arsenal can’t possibly resist turning up.

Now, how many bandits he’ll bring is the ultimate question. Lalna doesn’t doubt that he can make a run for it. He’s gotten significantly faster over the months during his stint as a Vault Hunter, no thanks to the constant near-death experiences. The bandits will be in technicals or Buzzards, so running away on foot doesn’t seem that feasible.

Larry Robert’s also boasting a new series of upgrades, sporting a set of six shoulder cannons, each capable of firing either missiles or gunfire, scavenged from many of its dead siblings scattered around the Tundra Express rapids.

Receiving the ‘SOS’ signal had been a fortunate coincidence when crossing the border, as with saving Benji and Strippin. He hopes that the two will be okay with Lalnable. It’s mean to think as much, but those tickets are too good to be wasted if nobody uses them.

Lalna gestures for Larry Robert to kneel. It holds out a hand to help him clamber up, slipping between the cannons. He ends up sitting on his beloved robot’s head, legs swinging against Larry Robert’s chassis.

An an experiment, he asks Larry Robert to move; Larry Robert walks in a circle, Lalna testing his balance. Larry Robert hops into the air, briefly.

By hanging onto the side of a cannon with a hand, he can stay on. Now if he wants to get somewhere quick while being incognito, he can ask Larry Robert to fly. This way, he doesn’t have to worry about having to spawn a technical or having his shield shredded while running.

Escape plan sorted, Lalna directs the two of them behind a massive rock formation to hide. It’s not like there’s going to be an ambush, but it still pays to be careful. the Vault Hunting’s impressed that on him. 

The last thing he needs is to get ambushed and have Larry Robert knocked out or get taken prisoner (did bandits even take prisoners?) before he can meet Arsenal.

Larry Robert beeps inquisitively, crouching to let him slide off.

“If they starting shooting, fly in and save me, but stay hidden,” Lalna whispers to Larry Robert. Larry Robert whines. Nonetheless, it stays put. “No matter what happens,  _ don’t _ kill any of them or Arsenal.”

“Acknowledged,” Larry Robert intones. Lalna delivers an affectionate pat, leaning against his robot to wait. His shield’s detached, swallowed by his inventory.

He doesn’t have to wait for too long, fretting whether or not Arsenal is a no-show. Dark shapes appear on the horizon.

A volt of Buzzards descend, almost invisible against the clouds. Each land to form a circle, the lead one gently touching down in the centre. The dust cloud kicked up by whining, rattling engines begins to settle once the last Buzzard powers down. Bandits spread out, toting guns and chattering amongst themselves. Each appears tense and alert, a hint of blue standing out amongst the clearing’s drab background.

Lalna risks peeking over the rock to try spotting Arsenal. There he is, by the center Buzzard. He’s unbuckling the safety line connected to his belt. The line’s flicked aside.

Arsenal doesn’t look like the mental image Lalna had of him. The bandit clothing (save for the standard jacket replaced by a formal Dahl one; it’s unzipped, revealing a shirt) marks him as one, as with the multiple grisly scars marking his freckled, tanned face.

A grimace adorns Arsenal’s face. He leans against the seat, a hand on his left leg. A masked bandit leans over to offer a hand, only to be waved away. Arsenal tugs the goggles on his head down around his neck, straightening up to step off the Buzzard.

A taller, helmeted and intimidating bandit slouches over to talk. Lalna spots a scar-riddled chin underneath the edge of the helmet. They match the idea in his head of what a bandit leader or lieutenant should look like.

The pilot of Arsenal’s Buzzard climbs out, shoving up their flight mask and goggles to gingerly sniff the air. A gun is restlessly bouncing in their hand. From the other side of the circle, an identical bandit strolls over to engage them in banter.

With an unimpressed look, Arsenal glances around the clearing, his gaze sweeping over Lalna’s rock. Larry Robert hunches down so the cannons don’t draw unwanted attention.

It’s now or never. Lalna edges into the clearing, holding his hands up to show that he’s unarmed. 

All the bandits react instantly by raising weapons, training them on Lalna. It’s a sign of how well disciplined they are not to open fire when Arsenal raises a hand. Heart beating in his throat, Lalna waits for his decision.

Arsenal limps over with surprising speed, standing in front of Lalna. He’s taller despite resting nearly all his weight on his right leg, coolly looking Lalna up and down. 

Lalna endures the appraisal, trying not to bite his scarred lip. Arsenal clearly doesn't think too much of him with the way his mouth sets.

On the other hand, the two identical looking bandits behind him look livid. “It’s him! The Vault Hunter who took Daltos!” One of them hisses, jabbing their gun at Lalna (who stops a flinch).

Arsenal shows no reaction to this, staring Lalna down. The helmeted lieutenant reloads their shotgun, muttering, “Yeah, this here’s the bastard who used him as a hostage.” The shotgun’s raised to point at Lalna’s head. “You came back to take Arsenal too?”

Lalna hastily shakes his head.

“Arsenal, you should kill them!” The third lieutenant enthusiastically proposes, aiming their rifle at Lalna. 

“We got a special stake waiting out front!” A few bandits holler their sentiments as well, raising their hands to punch the air. The rest keep their guns trained on Lalna.

“Yeah!” The first lieutenant gleefully agrees, nodding along like it makes perfect sense.

Lalna’s metal hand curls. He hates how he’s starting to sweat at the slightest sign of a fight, his shirt already sticking to his back. He doesn’t dare move for fear of being shot, still holding Arsenal’s deathly calm gaze. 

Arsenal  _ still _ hasn’t drawn a gun or done anything. That’s what’s spooking Lalna. Surely other people would have done or said something by now.

“Fall back,” Arsenal orders, tugging off his gloves to tuck them into a pouch on his belt. The order sends an incredulous shockwave through the bandits who’d heard him and as it’s passed around to the rest. Lalna joins the bandits in staring.

“What? Hey man, you can’t be serious, this is the same fucker who kidnapped-” The first bandit lieutenant protests.

“Did I fucking stutter?” Arsenal turns to them, a hand resting on his digistruct module.

Whatever the gesture means, the bandit immediately snaps their mouth shut, meekly nodding. “Fine! Just leave something for us to put on the stake, alright?”

The other two lieutenants trudge off when Arsenal turns to them. One throws a hateful glare at Lalna, eyes narrowing into a cross-eyed squint. A line across their throat’s drawn before they slink away, muttering darkly under their breath.

Helmet lieutenant regards Lalna with a thoughtful tilt of their head before their shorter buddy pointedly nudges them in the back with a rifle barrel. The rest of the bandits follow, retreating until it’s just Arsenal and Lalna left.

Maybe Arsenal wants to hear him out. Lalna weakly grins at him.

“I’m sor-” Lalna’s barely opened his mouth when Arsenal’s fist colliding with his face. It stops him mid-sentence.

There’s no time to wonder what’s happening when the second blow arrives, smashing into the other side of his stunned face.

Metal fills his mouth. Blunt teeth scrape along the raw, opened side of his tongue. His head throbs, everywhere at once, like a clamp’s screwed around his skull and is tightening with every cruel, sharp twist of the knob.

Arsenal aims his next blow at Lalna’s chest, forcing air out of Lalna’s lungs. Blow after blow rains down on Lalna, never missing and never letting up. He advances when Lalna falters. Lalna’s trembling frame jars with every hit.

With no shield, there’s nothing standing in the way of pain. There’s so much pain that the only reason why he doesn’t pass out is the determination to not fall. Falling means cowardly backing out of retribution that he’s been trying to avoid.

It’s impossible to tell if Arsenal will stop once Lalna’s dead, putting that promised stake to good use at last.

He’s stopped gasping after the fifth punch, blood dribbling down his chin. Bright red flecks paint his shirt, mouth, cheeks and vision. Ragged breaths go incomplete. His heaving chest tries to push back against the forces ruthlessly caving it in.

If he’s broken anything, he doesn’t know. Each pain is indistinguishable within the delirious haze cottoning his mind. The hits burst like soap bubbles, sending out splashes of searing heat that keep him conscious. He hangs onto the fleeting sensations, forcing his eyes to remain open.

Arsenal’s hand twists in his matted hair, hurling him at the ground. Unable to roll, Lalna hits it, sliding half a metre. Mud smears all over his front and arms, a freezing wet splatter that chills. His hands plant in the mud, already pushing himself up- a boot lands on his prone wrist.

The heel grounds it down like it’s nothing more than a spent cigarette stub. Stones cut into abused pink skin, opening up stinging scratches. Muck seeps in, blood seeps out. 

A swift kick to Lalna’s already damaged ribs earns a pitiful whimper. He’s thankful that the boot’s not pressing his face into the mud to rub it in, or stepping on the back of his head.

The boot comes up. It nudges under his chin, lifting Lalna’s weary head for him with a gentleness that’s jarring. He glimpses Arsenal’s bored face. The boot flicks up. Flipped onto his back, Lalna’s hands clench thin air when the boot comes down onto his chest like a dropped anvil.

It  _ hurts _ so he makes the fatal mistake of trying to block Arsenal with his metal arm. An eyebrow raises. Arsenal pauses, removing his boot from the arm. Regretting the move, Lalna sucks in as much air as he can, spared a few seconds of reprieve while prone.

Out of the corner of his vision, Arsenal pats down his array of jacket pockets. From one, he removes a thin metal object, shaped like an elongated ‘t’.

Lalna would know that anywhere, the spike of fear making his head spin. It’s a tesla grenade, stripped down to its basic parts. He methodically splits it into five parts. Three segments return to Arsenal’s jacket.

He holds one spiked end in one hand like he’s about to throw a dart. His boot stretches Lalna’s metal arm along the ground. Lalna jerks, futilely raising his other hand to- what, beg for mercy? He doesn’t deserve mercy. His hand drops back to his side.

The grenade spears his metal palm, pinning it to the ground. Mud softens the impact with a disgusting squelch. Pain shoots up Lalna’s arm, making him writhe, gasping for air that he’s not going to get.

Arsenal flips the other grenade in his hand, removing his boot. Before Lalna can react, that grenade’s brutally shoved into Lalna’s shoulder, forcing the plates apart.

Lalna hears his shirt rip when the anchor finds the ground to hook into it. How Arsenal knows where to put the grenades so that they don’t cut any wires or circuitry, he doesn’t know. A boot rests on the end of the grenade in his shoulder.

Next thing he knows, it’s  _ pressing _ down. 

The hurt from before doesn’t compare to this one. The grenade’s jabbing against the bundled cables for sensory input, creating signals that shouldn’t exist. 

Lalna’s vision flares white. He arches his back, raking the ground with his other hand, gouging messy troughs with his fingers. He chokes down a scream, mouth open to silently gasp.

Mud’s doing jack shit to ease how his head and body’s on fire, both inside and out.

A final stomp ensures that the grenades won’t budge. Lalna can’t handle it, it’s too much- the grenades emit a blue light, the tops of the crosses popping up.

Between the two fragments, his metal hand’s caught in the same electrical storm which took down Daltos. 

Lalna’s palm clenches on its own, motors and servos contracting to breaking point, precious wires burning- Lalna remotely shuts down his arm. Without the right tools, he can’t perform a manual removal to check if his arm’s truly fucked.

He leans his sweat drenched head against his shoulder. Throwing up won’t help him. The tesla grenades short out a few seconds later, fizzling. One’s so close to Lalna’s hair that it makes a few strands float from the lingering current.

A lighter clicks. Lalna wills his head to turn, shutting his swollen eye. Arsenal’s smoking. He breathes out a transparent cloud, staring into space. It disperses into the wind. He shuts his eyes briefly like it’s a guilty pleasure, a smirk on his lips.

Lalna’s  _ nothing _ to him. 

Arsenal crouches, holding out the lit end of the cigarette. It hovers over the eye that’s not so swollen. Lalna’s forced to focus on the orange, red and grey bit glowing like stoked coals baking in a firepit. He twists his head away. Arsenal’s hand yanks on Lalna’s hair, forcing him to look directly at the smouldering cigarette.

He can’t shrink away from Arsenal’s sadistic, sick grin.

The lit end about to meet his eye darts away. Smoke trails up in its wake. Relieved, Lalna sags. Arsenal replaces the cigarette in his mouth, opening his hand. Without any support, Lalna slumps back onto the ground in an undignified, mud covered heap.

Extra weight on his knees makes him wince. It’s not like he can go anywhere, with his metal arm still pinned. Grinning like he’s finally enjoying this, Arsenal’s casually reclining on him. He’s using Lalna’s legs as a prop to keep the mud off his clothes.

A growing heat against one of Lalna’s thighs makes him start. Lalna’s eyes snap to it. Arsenal’s holding the cigarette to his jeans as he would a pen. 

His hand undoes the zipper and belt to Lalna’s jeans, working the fabric down with a few tugs, shimmying it to expose pale, unblemished skin free of sunburn. Cold brings goosebumps to his skin.

His choice of underwear’s the least of his concerns when there’s a smoke about to- Lalna tries to dislodge him by frantically wriggling about. It causes mud to leak into the back of his pants where it hasn’t already, up his shirt and further into his filthy hair. 

Fucking- Arsenal’s too heavy, plus he’s got a solid grip on Lalna’s belt. Ignoring the struggling, Arsenal brings the cigarette down, pressing it into Lalna’s naked outer thigh.

Arsenal’s chilling laughter is barely audible over Lalna’s pained screaming. He thrashes, trying to get away. It’s only a cigarette and yet, it’s like a brand, burning, burning,  _ burning _ and he nearly passes out.

The second burn is too close to the first, positioned to the left. It overlaps the damaged and new skin. Collectively, it’s worse than when his arm had exploded; he had the luxury of being out cold back then. Each consecutive burn on his thigh sears through Lalna’s mind and skin.

He doesn’t know how long it goes for, time looping. It comes and goes, pain sparking into a sharp, pronounced ache that climaxes into a heat hot enough to char flesh, nearly cooking it. Just when it reaches the point where he thinks he’ll break, it abruptly ceases. It starts up again far too soon, always giving him just enough room to barely recover before pulling him back into the hell once more.

The laughter’s still in his ears by the time Arsenal removes the cigarette, taking a long, satisfied drag. Smoke blows into Lalna’s face, eliciting tears on top of the ones already trickling down his cheeks. It forms tracks, sticking to the layers of blood and mud.

Arsenal pulls his jeans up, fixing the zipper and buckling the belt for him. He pats Lalna’s stomach once, as if to mockingly say ‘good job’ and rises. The sudden lack of weight on Lalna’s numbing, aching legs is a relief, a minor mercy.

Any hope that this is over is dashed when hands rip the grenades from his arm and shoulder. Pinpricks of phantom pain twinge. The fabric of his jeans distantly rubs against the fresh cigarette burns.

With one hand, Arsenal drags him up by the shirt onto his feet. He lifts Lalna like Lalna’s dead weight, holding him in place. A hand slaps Lalna when Lalna’s head flops to the left. The brief pain forces him back into his body.

His feet find the ground. If he doesn’t stand up, there’s no telling what Arsenal will do to get him to stay standing. No matter how much he wants to buckle to his knees, spill out apologies from a cut that won’t close until he’s left this world.

Lalna doesn’t need (or want) to see Arsenal’s face. Nothing can be gained from it, or trying to. He’ll never understand what Arsenal’s gone through, filling in the void left behind by Daltos’ disappearance.

The lightheadedness is at a point where he feels like he’s floating, connected by a tendril of awareness that links his tormented mind to his battered body. It could snap, at any second.

Pain tempts him to close his eyes. Sweet submission awaits him if he does. He sways on the spot. A wisp of a draft could knock him over, sending him sprawling in the mud, unresponsive and unable to rise.

Larry Robert and the bandits watch, dispassionately, prevented from intervening under the threat of having that same violence unleashed on them. Fear keeps the bandits at bay. Obedient loyalty ensures Larry Robert’s silent vigil.

Not one bandit cheered when the punching began, or when the cigarette’s lowered. Lalna doesn’t know why; he thought that they’d be all for watching him get beaten and tortured.

Arsenal steps back. His spent cigarette’s discarded over one shoulder. If he wants to keep swinging, Lalna’s not going to stop him.

“Why aren’t you fighting back?” Arsenal’s voice is quiet and restrained, lacking the cruel, savage edge his laughter had.

It takes Lalna a few seconds get his brain into gear and to find his voice. The latter’s been beaten down to his stomach. Blood gushes from the corner of his mouth, a small bubble popping when his lips move.

“Because of what I did to your friend,” He croaks.

Arsenal grabs Lalna by the front of his shirt to haul him closer, smearing the drying blood on his knuckles all over the fabric. He brings his face close to Lalna’s. Yes, he gets it: his suffering will never satisfy Arsenal.

Mud and water trickle down Lalna’s back and legs, oozing to cake his jeans and boots. The pain’s reached a peak that merely aches, a background sensation reminding him that the next hit’s his last.

Blazing green eyes steadily bore into Lalna’s own. “Vamoose,” He spits. A hard shove sends Lalna staggering backwards.

Lalna almost topples over, lifting his head. It takes a full ten seconds to digest the words. He slurs at the start, forcing himself to sound coherent to avoid repeating himself. “Why’re you letting me go?” His jaw throbs with pain after speaking.

Thirty seconds ago, he’d been so sure that he’s about to die. He almost feels cheated. The relief at being allowed to live overrides that. His death wouldn’t change much but dying’s bound to appease (or disappoint) some people.

“Killing you won’t bring him back,” Arsenal snaps, turning his back on Lalna to limp away. “Get the fuck out of my sight.”

“Daltos is at-” Lalna shouts when Arsenal’s reached the ring of watching bandits. A few bump or trip into each other in their haste to give him space.

Arsenal rounds on Lalna, drawing a pistol so fast that it blurs, firing it once. The round pings off the rock by Lalna’s boot. 

Lalna will never forget Arsenal’s expression. 

Not being needed to be told to leave a third time, Lalna flees. Larry Robert helps him up onto its back. Once he’s settled, it takes off with a roar of fire towards the Fast Travel Station. Larry Robert sets him down, despawning as he flicks through the menu.

Nobody’s going to help him out of the mess that he’s created, not even Will Strife and Nanosounds. 

Once Will Strife and Nanosounds are back, they’ll learn of his deeds from the other Vault Hunters and join the hunt for him. That adds another layer of urgency to the situation. Not wanting to be screamed at, Lalna switches off his ECHO device.

He almost regrets handing over his medkit to Strippin and Benji, now lacking anything to patch himself up with. Going back to Lalnable’s out of the question.

First, it’s find somewhere safe. There’s nothing much he can do about his wounds aside from rest as much as possible. He can tend to his dead arm, wipe off all the mud, change clothes and maybe find a place to wash up. After that, it’s time to go.

He doesn’t know what he’ll find at the coordinates on the page of the thesis. This is his last chance to fix his mistake before Rythian and the others arrive to confront Sjin. Lalna closes his eyes to let the Fast Travel Station’s light take him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (now denying that sweet sweet release of death.)
> 
> we’re nearly there! thank you to teagstime, siins, doublearrows and polishingopals for sticking with this and for being amazing people as always, for listening, editing and enabling this beautiful mess of an au.
> 
> this is the fic where lalna and lalnable finally unpack all their emotional baggage and throw it at each other. there’s a lot of lingering resentment and hate between the two, back when they had that one massive argument and went off on their own.
> 
> this was also a difficult fic to write, for many many reasons. i also wanted to showcase lalnable’s positive character development, in comparison to lalna’s own negative, slow downhill journey into despair and hopelessness.
> 
> in a way, lalnable himself serves to enable lalna’s selfish behaviour. he’s not wrong about lalna being selfish; nobody’s perfect, but lalna’s selfishness deliberately endangers a lot of people, on top of the planet. 
> 
> he uses lalnable as an excuse, which lalnable doesn’t put up with. that’s one of the reasons why they fought in the clinic. there’s lots of other reasons but that’s the main one.
> 
> lalna actively chooses to try to atone for his actions by handing the tickets over to strippin and benji (who are two people who deserve so much better than what pandora handed them). 
> 
> ever since i wrote benji and strippin in, i knew how their arc would end and wrap up. that was ages ago! while strippin and benji’s appearances are minor, they do have a major impact on the plot. everybody in borderlandscast has a role, whether or not they’re aware of it. 
> 
> if strippin and benji had never fixed up rythian’s technical when it broke down, rythian and co would have returned late. ravs would have found out from nilesy that turps cheated. nilesy would have died due to hatfilms killing him during the confrontation. the result? ravs, lomadia and teep would have murdered turps and hatfilms. ravs blames himself and as rythian predicts, gives up the title of meriff. he falls into a deep depression.
> 
> martyn would have closed lynchwood and not pointed the location of a power core to the vault hunters. the vault hunters would never have run into zylus. they would never have kidnapped daltos. daltos eventually discovers zylus hiding in t-bone junction, kills him and takes bebopvox back. 
> 
> sanctuary hole is unable to hold out against daltos and arsenal’s bandit gang; ravs fails to convince daltos to leave sanctuary hole alone. sanctuary hole and the vault hunters die trying to hold out. the vault key falls into the caustic caverns. sjin finds it and succeeds in his plans.
> 
> what i’m really trying to say is that even if you think people don’t have an impact on the greater timeline, they do, even if they don’t (or never) realise it.
> 
> arsenal's fic is next up on the roster; after that, it’ll be back to the last two chapters of teep’s btb fic.
> 
> thanks for reading. doodles by the luminous siins are over [here](https://borderlandscast.tumblr.com/tagged/beyond-the-borderlands%3A-i.o.u.%3A-one-ticket-home)!


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